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Curated playlist

University of California, Berkeley alumni

  • Jack LondonJack London lost four front teeth to scurvy in the Klondike. It also gave him the wolf dog of The Call of the Wild.
  • Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died four months before Blade Runner opened. He never saw the film that made his name famous.
  • Roger SessionsComposer Roger Sessions won a Pulitzer Prize for a whole career, then another for one concerto.
  • Stith ThompsonA University of Wisconsin undergraduate once wrote a thesis called "The Return from the Dead in Popular Tales and Ballads." The student was Stith Thompson, an American folklorist. Admirers later described him as "America's most important…
  • David J. PetersonDavid J. Peterson won an HBO contest to invent the Dothraki language.
  • Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
  • Rodney StarkRodney Stark, once "personally incapable of religious faith," called himself an "independent Christian" in 2007.
  • Timothy LearyTimothy Leary escaped prison in September 1970 by climbing a telephone wire over the wall.
  • Jonathan BlowJonathan Blow, an American game designer and programmer, once summed up his working philosophy in one blunt line: "The job isn't to be in a community; the job is to make a good game." He said it after some of his comments about independent…
  • Tim SchaferTim Schafer landed his first game job by mailing a comic strip. It showed him getting hired at Lucasfilm Games.
  • Jim SimonsJim Simons, born James Harris Simons, once explained his dislike of publicity by borrowing a line from Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies. That's kind…
  • Jack VanceJack Vance memorized an eye chart to join the Merchant Marine. He later kept writing novels after going legally blind.
  • Lawrence KleinLawrence Klein's model correctly predicted a postwar boom when many expected a depression.
  • Roger RevelleIn 1957, Roger Revelle warned that humans were running a huge experiment on Earth.

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